I was in the car on Friday morning and it was one of those run-of-the-mill mornings. One that goes according to plan and you forget it shortly afterwards. Nothing spectacular has happened and nothing devastating has happened either.
Both kids were with me and we were on our way to school. While I was driving, I asked my daughter of she wanted to listen to music. She got all excited and said "Yeah! The challah song!". I asked if she knew was day it was and in an even louder voice she said "Yeah! Shabbat!". I smiled and thought about how great it was to see her so excited. She proceeded to tell me who the Shabbat Ima was that week in her class and sing through her songs. I got into the spirit and started singing with her. Then her singing got REALLY loud!
I realized that I had been missing out on an essential part of parenting; the part where you instill joy in your child for mitzvot. I realized that I fell victim to something very common for parents, responsibility. I got caught up in the day-to-day responsibilities of being a parent, like feeding, clothing, bathing, taking them to school etc, and had lost sight of the most important things we are supposed to teach them. We are in a rush to get to work and forget that allowing them to dress themselves is an important skill we need to teach. We bring them to school and forget to teach them that to love to learn.
With this realization, I sang even louder and we spent the rest of the car ride talking about how excited for Shabbat we were. Yes, getting them to school is an important first step. But parenting shouldn't stop there and I won't let it. May we all have the patience and understanding to become the parents we want to become.
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